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Journal of Animal Science and Technology
Korean Society of Animal Science and Technology

J Anim Sci Technol

pISSN: 2055-0391, eISSN: 2672-0191

DOI: https://doi.org/10.5187/jast.2023.e110

Article

Aging mechanism for improving the tenderness and taste characteristics of meat

Seon-Tea Joo1,2, Eun-Yeong Lee1, Yu-Min Son1, Md. Jakir Hossain1, Chan-Jin Kim1, So-Hee Kim1, Yong-Hwa Hwang2,*
1Division of Applied Life Science (BK Four), Gyeongsang National University, JINJU 52828, Korea.
2Institute of Agriculture & Life Science, Gyeongsang National University, JINJU 52828, Korea.
*Corresponding Author: Yong-Hwa Hwang, Institute of Agriculture & Life Science, Gyeongsang National University, JINJU 52828, Korea, Republic of. E-mail: philoria@gnu.ac.kr.

© Copyright 2023 Korean Society of Animal Science and Technology. This is an Open-Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Received: Sep 22, 2023; Revised: Oct 07, 2023; Accepted: Oct 10, 2023

Published Online: Oct 11, 2023

Abstract

Tenderness and taste characteristics of meat are the key determinants of the meat choices of consumers. This review summarizes the contemporary research on the molecular mechanisms by which postmortem aging of meat improves the tenderness and taste characteristics. The fundamental mechanism by which postmortem aging improves the tenderness of meat involves the operation of the calpain system due to apoptosis, resulting in proteolytic enzyme-induced degradation of cytoskeletal myofibrillar proteins. The improvement of taste characteristics by postmortem aging is mainly explained by the increase in the content of taste-related peptides, free amino acids, and nucleotides produced by increased hydrolysis activity. This review improves our understanding of the published research on tenderness and taste characteristics of meat and provides insights to improve these attributes of meat through postmortem aging.

Keywords: Aging; Tenderness; Taste characteristics; proteolysis; Taste-related compounds